A conservative is expected to triumph in Iran’s latest election – but apathy will be the big winner

Even candidates are worried about the will of people to vote, writes Kim Sengupta

Supporters of presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi during a rally in Tehran (AP)

The last presidential election in Iran four years ago was a vibrant and exciting time. The nuclear agreement with international powers had been signed, bringing with it great hopes of the country opening up to the world after years of semi-isolation: sweeping social and economic reforms were expected to follow.

There were processions, marches and public meetings, impassioned speeches, a sense of energy and expectation about what lay ahead.

A rally for the reformist President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran’s Khomeini Square was filled with young people, half of them women. An orchestra with violins, cellos and Iranian setar and tamburs played traditional and modern music. The crowd chanted “we are building a new Iran” and were eager to speak to the foreign journalists present about how they wanted to see their country progress.

A rally for Ebrahim Raisi, the main conservative candidate, the following evening was a very different affair. Tens of thousands had been bussed in from rural areas. Men and women were segregated and martial music played between roars exhorting their candidate and castigating Rouhani. There were a few scuffles, a few people fainted.

Looming over the election was the malignant shadow of Donald Trump, the new US president. He had declared that the nuclear agreement, which had taken years to achieve, was the “worst deal in history” and declared his determination to “dismantle this disastrous mistake”.

The people at the rallies were fully aware of the importance of the nuclear deal. “How can what Trump says be anything but damaging?” said Siavash Sharivar, a civic society organiser who has been helping the Rouhani campaign. "There are unfortunately people here who will use it against the president and, also, to whip up feelings against foreigners. What we want is to open up Iran, not close it more.”

Mahasti Saidi, one of the women, almost all dressed in black, who had gathered for Raisi, knew who was to blame. She told me: “It is Barjam [the Persian acronym for the nuclear agreement] that has weakened Iran, we need to end it, we want our security back.” But would that not lead to reimposition of tough sanctions?” Hassan, her brother, was adamant. “So what? We have had hardship before, we will rebuild our country. We know the Americans are our enemies. Rouhani's ‘reforms’ have only helped the rich: they have done nothing for us.”

The complaints around corruption and inefficiency, politicians being out of touch with ordinary people, lack of opportunities for the young and a sense of disconnect were not just restricted to those supporting the conservatives.

Yet, Rouhani won a sweeping victory when the election came. The position taken by engineering graduate Navid Karimi and those like him helps to explain the result. The 23-year-old told me on a previous visit that his plans had been to get a well-paid job, go on a road trip in the US and avoid dying fighting in Syria.

Fifteen months on he was yet to find a job; the road trip, the result of being introduced to Jack Kerouac by an uncle educated in Illinois, was not going to happen anytime soon with the uncertainties surrounding Trump’s travel ban; but he had so far managed to avoid conscription and being sent to Syria.

Two of his three friends who joined us for chai were also unemployed and frustrated by the lack of jobs. But they all voted to keep President Rouhani in power. The main reason was that the hardliners' candidate was Raisi, once a judge in the “death commissions” sentencing people to executions, and what this would mean for the future.

There was also the spectre of the eight-year presidency of another hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Raisi is talking like Ahmadinejad, who came along saying that he would clean up corruption and look after the poor. But my father warned me, don’t even think of voting for Raisi. Remember what happened with Ahmadinejad,” Navid said. “No, I am sticking with Rouhani." One of his friends nodded. “Ahmadinejad set us back 20, 30 years: we are only just beginning to get over him."

Iran is holding another presidential election on Friday. Four years on, Trump has gone, Joe Biden has stated that he wants to take the US back into the nuclear deal and talks on that are taking place, through European intermediaries, in Vienna.

This time, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, there have been no rallies or marches, no public meetings. There has, instead, been a series of televised debates.

Raisi is expected to achieve what he failed to do last time – win. Opinion polls give him a backing ranging from 49 per cent to 62 per cent of those who intend to vote, with 50 per cent needed to win outright in the first round.

His main opponent Abdolnaser Hemmati, a former governor of the Central Bank of Iran, is trailing at present with some polls putting his support at less than 5 per cent. He has been backed by the reformist leader Mehdi Karroubi and Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the head of the centrist Kargozaran e Sazandegi party. But he has failed to get the two-thirds backing necessary from the Reform Front, an umbrella group, to get its endorsement.

The issue of actual intention to vote is a strong factor here. The turnout is expected to be between 37 per cent and 41 per cent, the lowest figure since 1979 when 42.6 per cent voted. And a sizeable reduction from the 73.9 per cent in 2017.

The voting figure was also down last year in the majlis (parliamentary) election I covered. Trump was still in power then, with seemingly no chance of the nuclear deal being revived. But there was also deep dissatisfaction with the government. Reformist voters stayed away and the conservatives won by a landslide, even taking all seats in Tehran, traditionally a liberal stronghold.

That dissatisfaction and apathy has continued, but there now also seems to be an element of protest in people not wanting to vote. Rouhani cannot stand for a third term under the constitution and even if he could, his own popularity has fallen. But the country’s Guardian Council which vets candidates seeking to stand has also culled seven people from the list who are considered reformists.

Prominent public figures have also been culled, including the former speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, the vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri and a former deputy interior minister, Mostafa Tajzadeh.

The barring of Larijani, whose family has long been tied to the country’s establishment, is particularly surprising. He is a conservative, but was viewed as someone who reformist voters may back. He had demanded to know why he was disqualified, but without success.

His brother, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, has claimed that he believes the Guardian Council based its decision on false reports that Ali Larijani’s daughter is a US citizen. There are also claims that his role as speaker in getting the nuclear deal through parliament also counted against him.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had publicly intervened, saying in a televised speech: “Some candidates were wronged. They were accused of untrue things. Protecting people’s honour is one of the most important issues. I call on the responsible bodies to restore their honour”. The Guardian Council, however, refused to re-examine their decisions.

Ali Larijani, in a statement, rued “wrong manners that are damaging public trust”, but he urged people to vote and “make destiny” for Iran.

Also among those disqualified is Ahmadinejad. He has said he is not going to vote and complained in an interview this week: “People asked me to be a candidate, millions around the country came to my home, sent letters and messages, insisted I enter the race and so to answer the people’s will I joined. I think Iran needs fundamental reform to the mechanism that caused the will of a majority of the people to be left out.”

Hemmati has pledged to investigate banks and businesses owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and have women in senior positions in his cabinet. His wife Sepideh Shabestari took part in a television debate on his behalf not in a chador, but a headscarf, leading to her trending on social media. Hemmati has said that he will include foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, one of the key architects of the nuclear deal, in his cabinet. He has also expressed willingness to meet Joe Biden if he was elected to discuss the nuclear deal and other issues, a statement which immediately brought him under attack from the hardliners.

The former bank governor maintains it is not his opponents in the election but the failure of people to vote which is his greatest worry. There have been mounting calls to boycott the election, and organised groups campaigning for this, including bereaved families of those who died in the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner last year. Hashtags are trending on Twitter, including: “No way I’m voting” and “I won’t vote”.

The engineering graduate Navid Karimi is among those who will not be going to the polling station. “I think it will be a waste of time, they have already decided the winner by blocking so many candidates and Raisi will become president whatever happens,” he says.

“He lost the last election but they made sure that he became head of the judiciary. Hemmati will not get the necessary support,” he adds. “It has been easy for the principlists (conservatives) to blame him because he was in charge of the Central Bank with the economy in such a terrible state. Most of us don’t want to hope too much on the nuclear agreement. Biden has been president now for months but he has not lifted the sanctions. Most young people won’t vote.”

Some young people do say they will vote. Fariba, a 28-year-old working in an IT company, will be one of them. “A lot of people did not vote at the time of Ahmadinejad and look what happened for eight years. I had decided not to vote at first, but I have changed my mind. One needs to make the effort,” she says.

But Fariba, who did not want her family name mentioned, will tell very few people that she has voted: “So many of my friends are against taking part in this; some have said on social media that they won’t even associate with people who do. I will just go and vote, but not talk about it too much.”